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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26883	Richard Baxter's Catholick theologie plain, pure, peaceable, for pacification of the dogmatical word-warriours who, 1. by contending about things unrevealed or not understood, 2. and by taking verbal differences for real,; Catholick theologie	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1675 (1675)	Wing B1209; ESTC R14583	1,054,813	754

unus idemque per vitam totam esse non potest Non est satis quod dixi nisi illud etiam adjeceris qualis scopus hic esse debeat M. Antoninus li. 11. sect 21. p. 113. fruit of the Spirit that it is the very heart of the New Creature the sum of Sanctification as love is the sum of the Law So that to give the Spirit of Adoption to cry Abba Father and to sanctifie and to work in us the love of God and holiness are three phrases of the same signification in the Word of God 248. As Christ as Mediator is the summary means and way to the Father to bring man home to his Creator so Faith in Christ is a mediating Grace to work in us the love of God And as else-where I have oft said The bellowes of Faith kindling Love and Love working by holy Obedience Patience Mortification Gratitude and Praise is the substance of all true Religion 249. Love being the final Grace and Faith in Christ but a means to 1 Cor. 12. last 13. 1. 2. 2. Whether the habit of Love in patria be better than that of Faith and Vision in genere moris only or also in genere rei the School-men are utterly disagreed Cacere's sum Theol. 22. q. 5. a. 1. Utrum in sola charitate supernaturali sit amicitia hominis ad Deum Affirm Quia D●us ut a●●hor natura non ea communicat quae sunt propria ejus sed solum esse naturale potentias quae c. The Reason is not so good as the Assertion Vid. Bradward li. 1. c. 1. cor 30. Contra indoctos artis amandi n●scientes Deum esse propter seipsum amandum c●tera propter Deum omnesque actus humanos ad ipsum propter se finaliter ordinandos ipsumque esse super omnia diligendum and his following proof that God is not to be sinned against in the smallest of his Precepts or in the smallest thing to avoid the greatest pain o● obtain the greatest good imaginable it the end must needs be more excellent than the means as such And thus Paul giveth the pre-eminence to Love 250. And no wonder if he prefer it also for duration For Love is Heaven or felicity it self yea somewhat higher than felicity as such For as God is our End for and in himself above the ratio foelicitatis so God is our End as he is to be loved And God the Ultimate Object and Love the Ultimate Act and Gods Love communicated perfectly to us and Gods Will pleased in all this are the inadequate Conceptions which make up the Ultimate End supposing the perfection of Nature and of the Intellect in the sight of God as subservient hereunto 251. Man therefore hath a degree of fruition or attainment of his Ultimate End in this life so far as he hath a delightful love of God Though this be but the foretast and First-fruits 252. Therefore it is not by Faith only that we know what Heaven is and are drawn to seek it and hope for it but also by this earnest and foretast of love which worketh by a spiritual gust and sweet inward experience The Intellect first hath Faith and the Will hath Love And a promise and earnest is more a promise alone 253. When Faith hath wrought this holy Love in the Soul it doth as much if not more to keep us from Apostacy than Faith it self Therefore many unlearned Christians by the power of holy Love stand fast when subtile disputing Doctors may cleave to the world and fall away 254. Though it be an ill expression of those School-men that say Love is the form of every Grace that which I suppose they mean is true that love being the final Grace the rest as they are means to it or the effects and expressions of it are what they are partly in that Relation The means is a means only by its Aptitude to the end And is never loved as such for it self but for the end And what the effect hath it hath from its efficient Cause And it is true that no Faith no Fear no Obedience no Praise no Suffering is further accepted of God and a part of true Holiness nor will prove our Salvation than it participateth of predominant love to God But this predominant Love is always an evidence of Life 255. Qu. What if a man should by Faith in Christ be brought to the love of God and after fall away from Faith in Christ and yet retain his love to God would that love save him Ans When you can prove that ever there was such a man I will answer you Till then such false suppositions are no otherwise to be answered than by telling you that if God should permit a man to fall from Christ that man would lose the Spirit of Christ and the sight and sense of all Gods Love and Goodness manifested in Christ and in all the Work of Redemption And therefore he would lose the love of God 256. How far Holiness is the design of Christianity I have opened in a small Tractate on that Question And how far Sanctification is to be preferred before Pardon as such and yet Christ's Glory in pardoning us I have shewed there and in my Confession and therefore will not here repeat it SECT XVIII Of Perseverance and the certainty of it in order to certainty of Salvation and true Comfort 257. No man can be further certain of his final Salvation than he is certain of his perseverance in Faith and Love 258. Therefore it is a small number of Christians comparatively that ever were certain of their Salvation For 1. No one that is uncertain of his sincerity is certain of his Salvation 2. No one that holdeth this Doctrine That the Saints that are justified may fall away and that we cannot be sure of perseverance can be sure of his own Salvation It 's hard to conceive how he can be certain who holdeth that no man can be certain Now those that hold this Doctrine are almost all the Papists the Arminians the Lutherans and as far as I can learn by their Writings all the ancient Writers for a thousand years after Christ And the Semipelagians and Pelagians no man will put in as an exception except Jovinian alone against whom Jerome writing his second Book chargeth him as holding that a man truly baptized by the Spirit could not sin No doubt he meant to damnation or mortally But it 's doubtful what his Opinion was Augustine's report of him is of no great moment who as Erasmus noteth in his Argum. in Hier. adv Jovin neither had seen Jovinians Book or Hieorm's but spake by report And Austin Prosper and Fulgentius thought that all the Elect persevered as Elect being chosen to perseverance but that more were truly sanctified justified and in a state of Salvation had they so died than were elect That all these fell away and perished That no man could be certain whether or no he were

Ministers and serious Christians not only for Ceremonies but for holy practices of life Being under these apprehensions when the Wars began though the Cause it self lay in Civil Controversies between King and Parliament yet the thoughts that the Church and Godliness it self was deeply in danger by Persecution and Arminianism did much more to byass me to the Parliaments side than the Civil interest which at the heart I little regarded At last after two years abode in a quiet Garrison upon the Invitation of some Orthodox Commanders in Fairfax's Army and by the Mission of an Assembly of Divines I went after Naseby Fight into that Army as the profest Antagonist of the Sectaries and Innovators who we all then too late saw designed those changes in the Church and State which they after made I there met with some Arminians and more Antinomians These printed and preached as the Doctrine of Free Grace that all men must presently believe that they are Elect and Justified and that Christ Repented and Believed for them as Saltmarsh writeth I had a little before engaged my self as a Disputer against Universal Redemption against two antient Ministers in Coventry Mr. Cradock and Mr. Diamond that were for it But these new notions called me to new thoughts which clearly shewed me the difference between Christs part and Mans the Covenant of Innocency with its required Righteousness and the Covenant of Grace with its required and imputed righteousness I had never read one Socinian nor much of any Arminians but I laid by prejudice and I went to the Scripture where its whole current but especially Matth. 25. did quickly satisfie me in the Doctrine of Justification and I remembred two or three things in Dr. Twisse whom I most esteemed which inclined me to moderation in the five Articles 1. That he every where professeth that Christ so far dyed for all as to purchase them Justification and Salvation conditionally to be given them if they believe 2. That he reduceth all the Decrees to two de fine de mediis as the healing way 3. That he professeth that Arminius and we and all the Schoolmen are agreed that there is no necessity consequentis laid on us by God in Predestination but only necessity consequentiae or Logical but in Election I shall here suspend 4. That the Ratio Reatus in our Original Sin is first founded in our Natural propagation from Adam and but secondarily from the positive Covenant of God 5. That Faith is but Causa dispositiva Justificationis and so is Repentance These and such things more I easilier received from him than I could have done from another But his Doctrine of Permission and Predetermination and Causa Mali quickly frightned me from assent And though Camero's moderation and great clearness took much with me I soon perceived that his Resolving the cause of sin into necessitating objects and temptations laid it as much on God in another way as the Predeterminants do And I found all godly mens Prayers and Sermons run quite in another strain when they chose not the Controversie as pre-engaged In this case I wrote my first Book called Aphorisms of Justification and the Covenants c. And being young and unexercised in writing and my thoughts yet undigested I put into it many uncautelous words as young Writers use to do though I think the main doctrine of it sound I intended it only against the Antinomians But it sounded as new and strange to many Upon whose dissent or doubtings I printed my desire of my friends Animadversions and my suspension of the Book as not owned by me nor any more to be printed till further considered and corrected Hereupon I had the great benefit of Animadversions from many whom I accounted the most judicious and worthy persons that I had heard of First my friend Mr. John Warren began next came Mr. G. Lawson's the most judicious Divine that ever I was acquainted with in my judgement yet living and from whom I learned more than from any man next came Mr. Christopher Cartwright's then of York the Author of the Rabbinical Comment on Gen. chap. 1 2 3. and of the Defence of King Charles against the Marquess of Worcester Answers and Rejoinders to these took me up much time next came a most judicious and friendly MS. from Dr. John Wallis and another from Mr. Tombes and somewhat I extorted from Mr. Burges the answers to which two last are published To all these Learned men I owe very great thanks and I never more owned or published my Aphorisms but the Cambridge Printer stole an Impression without my knowledge And though most of these differed as much from one another at least as from me yet the great Learning of their various Writings and the long Study which I was thereby engaged in in answering and rejoyning to the most was a greater advantage to me to receive accurate and digested conceptions on these subjects than private Students can expect My mind being thus many years immerst in studies of this nature and I having also long wearied my self in searching what Fathers and Schoolmen have said of such things before us and my Genius abhorring Confusion and Equivocals I came by many years longer study to perceive that most of the Doctrinal Controversies among Protestants that I say not in the Christian World are far more about equivocal words than matter and it wounded my soul to perceive what work both Tyrannical and unskilful Disputing Clergie-men had made these thirteen hundred years in the world And experience since the year 1643. till this year 1675. hath loudly called to me to Repent of my own prejudices sidings and censurings of causes and persons not understood and of all the miscarriages of my Ministry and life which have been thereby caused and to make it my chief work to call men that are within my hearing to more peaceable thoughts affections and practices And my endeavours have not been in vain in that the Ministers of the Countrey where I lived were very many of such a peaceable temper though since cast out and a great number more through the Land by Gods Grace rather than any endeavours of mine are so minded But the Sons of the Coal were exasperated the more against me and accounted him to be against every man that called all men to Love and Peace and was for no man as in a contrary way And now looking daily in this posture when God calleth me hence summoned by an incurable Disease to hasten all that ever I will do in this World being uncapable of prevailing with the present Church disturbers I do apply my self to posterity leaving them the sad warning of their Ancestors distractions as a Pillar of Salt and acquainting them what I have found to be the cause of our Calamities and therein they will find the Cure themselves II. I Have oft taken the boldness constrainedly to say that I doubt not but the Contentions of the Clergie have done far more